Bella takes the blame

When she was smaller, she did the odd pee on the blue carpet in Oran’s bedroom — and there are the lighter blue stains hidden by the Ikea mat to prove it.

Old associations linger — maybe old aromas also — and she has dropped the odd turd there too since — never anywhere else. Okay, there is the odd one under the kitchen table, but that’s usually when she hasn’t been let out last thing.

The light socket is gone in Oran’s room and only the partial raising of the blind when I call him for school lets in some light. That and the reading light over his top bunk pew when he actually gets up. We keep meaning to fix the main light but it’s never quite urgent enough.

This morning, I went to call Oran.No movement. To make it easier I drop Bella into his bed. She’s been out already to do her morning business. The blonde mop turns and one arm reaches out for Bella.

I step back and as I raise the blind, the murky light reveals a familiar dark stumpy cigar-shaped object in the middle of the carpet.

“Bella!” I rebuke, in my best stern master voice. “Naughty, Bella!”

She shrinks below the wood surround of the bed, body and belly tight to the duvet cover, burrowing deeper into her shame.

For good measure I take her up and do that thing you’re supposed to do: push her head towardsthe offending object and tell her just why she is naughty.

The morning light is brighter and it reveals the object is actually the handle from one of the levers on Oran’s table football game.I lift her up and Oran and I make a fuss of her, me apologising and hugging her. She cringes at first, still in scolded mode, then looks up at me before leaning in and giving me that great single lick of forgiveness.

She is just delighted she is no longer in the bad books and the world is right again.

Oh, Magoo, you’ve done it again!

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A newspaper sub-editor for many years, I am now a freelance sub-editor, blogger and content writer. Husband of one and house daddy of two: a feisty, style-crazy 14-year-old girl and a football nut of a boy aged 13. My website: endastories.com.